93Elizabeth McGovern and Laura Carmichael: of to France, with a steamer trunk or twoThough The Downton Abbey TV
series had legions of fans during its
six-season run, you don’t have to be
one of them to enjoy Downton Abbey:
A New Era, the second ilm to spin of
from the show. Set in the waning days
of the 1920s, A New Era inds the Craw-
ley family distracted from its typical
genteel-rich-people routine by two en-
ticing prospects. First, a ilm director
(Hugh Dancy), making a moving pic-
ture with actual stars (played, delight-
fully, by Dominic West and Laura Had-
dock), wants to use the Crawley estate
as a location. Will peppery matriarch
Violet (Maggie Smith) allow such an
indignity? And then, almost simultane-
ously, Violet learns she has inherited
a villa in the south of France from a
long-ago lover, and her son Robert and
his wife Cora (Hugh Bonneville and
Elizabeth McGovern) pack up half the
family, along with a whole wardrobe of
loaty silks and linens, to check it out.
There’s intrigue upstairs and down:
Will Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery)be loyal to her absentee husband or
succumb to the attentions of a lirty
swain? Will head butler Barrow
( Robert James-Collier) remain true
to his calling or embark on the ad-
venture of a lifetime? Director Simon
Curtis (Woman in Gold) and writer
Julian Fellowes (the creator of the se-
ries) answer all those questions with a
feathery lourish.
If you don’t know all the charac-
ters, it’s easy enough to igure out
who’s who as the story motors along.
And even if you give up on that alto-
gether, there are always the clothes.
Oh, the clothes! Kimono jackets in
Sonia Delaunay–worthy combos
of tangerine and turquoise, cloaks
adorned with languid silk tassels,
chifon blouses dotted with dis-
creetly sparkly beads—because when
you’re a genteel rich person, you can
sparkle whenever you want, provided
you do it in good taste. Downton
Abbey: A New Era goes down as easy
as a Nice sunset. —s.z.REVIEWThe Downton Abbey crew exits
the Roaring ’20s with a flourishREVIEWJAZZ FEST: SONY PICTURES CLASSICS; DOWNTON ABBEY: FOCUS FEATURES